To strike means to attack. “The Indians have struck on the frontier,”—“A rattle-snake struck at me.”
To make tracks—to walk away. “Well, now, I shall make tracks;”—from foot-tracks in the snow.
Clear out, quit, and put—all mean “be off.” “Captain, now, you hush or put”—that is, “Either hold your tongue, or be off.” Also, “Will you shut, mister?”—i.e. will you shut your mouth? i.e. hold your tongue?
“Curl up”—to be angry—from the panther and other animals when angry raising their hair. “Rise my dandee up,” from the human hair; and a nasty idea. “Wrathy” is another common expression. Also, “Savage as a meat-axe.”
Here are two real American words:—
“Sloping”—for slinking away.
“Splunging,” like a porpoise.
The word “enthusiasm,” in the south, is changed to “entuzzy-muzzy.”
In the Western states, where the racoon is plentiful, they use the abbreviation ’coon when speaking of people. When at New York, I went into a hair-dresser’s shop to have my hair cut; there were two young men front the west—one under the barber’s hands, the other standing by him.
“I say,” said the one who was having his hair cut, “I hear Captain is in the country.”